CVE-2024-36888

workqueue: Fix selection of wake_cpu in kick_pool()

Medium · published May 30, 2024

CVSS v3.1
6.2
EPSS
0%
Percentile
13.9
In the wild
Unconfirmed
What it is

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

workqueue: Fix selection of wake_cpu in kick_pool()

With cpu_possible_mask=0-63 and cpu_online_mask=0-7 the following

kernel oops was observed:

smp: Bringing up secondary CPUs ...

smp: Brought up 1 node, 8 CPUs

Unable to handle kernel pointer dereference in virtual kernel address space

Failing address: 0000000000000000 TEID: 0000000000000803

[..]

Call Trace:

arch_vcpu_is_preempted+0x12/0x80

select_idle_sibling+0x42/0x560

select_task_rq_fair+0x29a/0x3b0

try_to_wake_up+0x38e/0x6e0

kick_pool+0xa4/0x198

__queue_work.part.0+0x2bc/0x3a8

call_timer_fn+0x36/0x160

__run_timers+0x1e2/0x328

__run_timer_base+0x5a/0x88

run_timer_softirq+0x40/0x78

__do_softirq+0x118/0x388

irq_exit_rcu+0xc0/0xd8

do_ext_irq+0xae/0x168

ext_int_handler+0xbe/0xf0

psw_idle_exit+0x0/0xc

default_idle_call+0x3c/0x110

do_idle+0xd4/0x158

cpu_startup_entry+0x40/0x48

rest_init+0xc6/0xc8

start_kernel+0x3c4/0x5e0

startup_continue+0x3c/0x50

The crash is caused by calling arch_vcpu_is_preempted() for an offline

CPU. To avoid this, select the cpu with cpumask_any_and_distribute()

to mask __pod_cpumask with cpu_online_mask. In case no cpu is left in

the pool, skip the assignment.

tj: This doesn't fully fix the bug as CPUs can still go down between picking

the target CPU and the wake call. Fixing that likely requires adding

cpu_online() test to either the sched or s390 arch code. However, regardless

of how that is fixed, workqueue shouldn't be picking a CPU which isn't

online as that would result in unpredictable and worse behavior.

The record
Technical detail
CVSS v3.1
6.2 · MEDIUM
Vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
CVSS v4.0
Not supplied
EPSS
0.00237 · 13.9th percentile
Published
2024-05-30T15:28Z
EPSS history
Timeline
  • 30 MAY 15:28Z
    workqueue: Fix selection of wake_cpu in kick_pool()
    cvelistv5